Evans, Hugh. What does it mean to be a citizen of the world?. TED 2016. Web. https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_evans_what_does_it_mean_to_be_a_citizen_of_the_world?language=en

Being a global citizen is essentially thinking outside of your own sphere – thinking globally. It requires thinking about how the world is connected and how we can act to change it. It is a way of thinking that can change the world.

“Surely, there is something more sensible to do with food than waste it.”

The black line on the graph is Tristam Stuart’s estimated optimal amount of food available within each country. Above this can be said to be “surplus”. Almost every country in the world falls above this line.

When you include the crops fed to lviestock, most countries have between 3-4 times the amount of food they need to feed themselves.

“The fact is, we have an enormous buffer in rich countries between ourselves and hunger. W’eve never had such gargantuan surpluses before.”

“We are reaching the ecological limits that our planet can bear.”\

“When we chop down forests as we are every day, to grow more and more food, when we extract water from depleting water reserves, when we emit fossil fuel emissions in the quest to grow more and more food, and throw away so much of it… We need to start thinking about what we can be saving.”

-Why do supermarkets, restaurants, farms throw so much out? Our society revolves around money. When there is no profit to be made, food is wasted.

concept for potential sculpture or painting?? But problems there regarding my sculpting skills.

Work would be like the Lady Justice, except the person would be obese – representative of wealthy (often western) nations, where the obesity rate is high due to a surplus of food and food culture. Holding a cow to represent food and the wealthy world’s control of this. The cow itself represents a control of massive amounts of land and water, both of which will be highly contested in the coming years. In the other hand is a water bottle to represent the fight for water rights in the face of climate change – but this could be swapped for a seed to represent the monopolization of agriculture and food resources by the wealthy.

For my project I intend to look at the problem of food and resource management in the face of climate change and world hunger. This encompasses the potential of drought with coming climate change, and the amount of water and resources used to produce meat for wealthy countries, as well as the amount of surplus food being wasted in wealthy countries. I would like to challenge the idea that we are going to face a world food shortage, when the solution is right in front us: stop wasting so much food. This solution, though, requires a lot more research and change in the way wealthy countries think. Doing this requires becoming a global citizen. Mirzoeff highlights that this requires thinking about things globally. This video is also a good way to think about global citizenship, and about how key changing thinking and taking action is:

Another video I found on TED was this talk by Tristam Stuart about the global food waste scandal and the ways we can change our thinking.

As well as this, there are issues regarding the monopolization of agriculture, and how that is affecting the growth of food in underdeveloped countries, and the controversy around GMOs. This topic is really important to me because thinking globally has made me realise that wealthy countries’ actions have had an adverse effect on climate change, the effects of which poor countries will feel the most. It’s not fair.

Taken from her website – “Planting and harvesting a field of wheat on land worth $4.5 billion created a powerful paradox. Wheatfield was a symbol, a universal concept; it represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, and economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger and ecological concerns. It called attention to our misplaced priorities. The harvested grain traveled to twenty-eight cities around the world in an exhibition called “The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger”, organized by the Minnesota Museum of Art (1987-90). The seeds were carried away by people who planted them in many parts of the globe.”

-The misuse of land, misplaced priorities.

-Not overly strong connection to my topic but could be unpicked further. Unsure about what point this work is trying to make.

Visual activism is essentially the visual culture that has now become central to activism. Visual activism sparks change through the use of imagery, whether it be snapchat videos, or carefully thought-out artworks. It’s the dissemination of an idea to spark change that defines visual activism.

Tristram Stuart TED Talk – Statistics regarding food waste and prevention of food waste and the overall impact of wasting food. Also talks about using food for the feeding of our animals and surplus foods in wealthy countries.

For my project I would like to focus on the future of food and resource management in the developed world, and how we waste so much food when so much of the world is starving. My focus will centre around whether or not there is enough food to feed the world in the coming years, especially in the face of climate change, and what can be done about it? Often people say that GMOs will be the answer, but there’s also evidence that we already have enough food to feed the world, but the majority of it is being used to feed the developed world and animals to feed the developed world. Around the idea of GMOs is the monopolisation of the food industry as well. At the end of the day, the 3rd world is being underfed, and having their livelihoods stripped.

The way Western society sees the world and their connection to nature has changed drastically over time, largely due to the ideology of the conquest of nature. The threat of climate change has become an increasing concern, and the need to discuss it and change the way Western society think about our connection to the planet is greater now than ever before. My discussion will center around defining the ‘conquest of nature’, and how it shaped Western society’s destructive relationship with nature. I will also explore indigenous worldview, particularly Māori Kaitiakitanga and how that shaped their perception of land ownership and connection to the land. The actions of the Western world, based upon the ideology of the conquest of nature, has also shaped the way Western society must now measure deep time, and physically see time through geological change.

Monet’s painting shows the conquest of nature by presenting a coal-smoke polluted sky and the mining industry in France. Since the scientific revolution, the west has had a preoccupation with the conquest of nature (Mirzoeff 220). Through activities such as mining, deforestation, irrigation and river straightening, the west has fundamentally changed the geology of the planet (Mirzoeff 219). In comparison to this is Maori worldview, whereby people are seen as apart of nature, or caretakers to it (Royal).

The myth of the photographic truth is that photographs are always inherently and undeniably truthful. But the production of a photograph in itself is influenced by the worldview of the photographer. As well as this, photographs are and always have been easily doctored, especially digital photographs. So when analysing photographs it is important to remember that they are not always the undeniable truth, and that they only say what the photographer wanted them to.